Now we have space problems at Matt Court involving cheerleaders. Nobody got tripped, and no one took a face full of Doublemint but there was a mild Twitter uproar Monday – perhaps started by me – about the fact Oregon State’s cheer/dance team wasn’t allowed to set foot on Matt Court.

Dick Harter famously stuck his foot out in 1974

Oh, there were OSU cheerleaders in the building, but they were sitting in the stands after paying for their own transportation and tickets. The financial plight of the OSU cheer/dance team and how it is treated by the OSU athletic department is probably a story for another day.

Anyway, it seemed strange indeed that the visiting team had no cheerleaders in a big Pac-12 game on TV between arch rivals who are less than an hour apart on the I-5.

Given the massive proportions of Matthew Knight Arena, it seemed silly to think that there was no room for the OSU cheer team (no OSU band, either) and while I suspect many of the cheer/dance people have strong feelings about this they didn’t want ruffle feathers, and were actually told not to speak to the media about “Cheergate.’’

Cheer team/dance team coach Amber Bezates said she had an opinion on the fact Oregon wouldn’t allow the OSU cheerleaders on the floor, but didn’t want to express it publically (I think she just did).

OSU assistant athletic director for marketing and promotions Nikki Pruett was equally circumspect, noting only that, “we were just told by (Oregon) that they didn’t have space accomodations for us, so we did not send our cheer team. Basically it was a University of Oregon decision.’’

Pruett said the Ducks told her, “they didn’t have space along the sidelines (for OSU) as well as locker room facilities.’’

Nobody calls Gary Payton "Hookhead'' and gets away with it

Riled up Twitter reaction tended to side with Oregon State, and the suggestion was made that if OSU’s cheer/dance team couldn’t support its basketballers at the Civil War game in Eugene, then by gosh the Duck cheerleaders shouldn’t be allowed to set foot in legendary Gill.

Pruett, in fact, said there was a mutal agreement between both athletic departments that “neither cheerleader squad would travel to the other person’s facility.’’

This seemed to fall into the neener, neener, neener category and seemed shortsighted in light of the fact fans from both schools enjoy watching the cheer/dance teams perform – especially at big, high-profile games.

Pruett said she had opinions on this, but “not anything that I would like to say at this time.’’

OSU men’s coach Craig Robinson did not want to comment on this Monday, probably because he would be put in a no-win situation.

Steve Fenk, the school’s sports information director, noted before a Mike Riley teleconference call that OSU was taking the higher ground in “Cheergate’’ and extending an invitation to the UO cheer/dance squad if it wants to be at the Civil War rematch.

It had to be purely unintentional that Oregon State’s gesture made the Ducks look somewhat small-minded.

“If the UO cheerleaders want to come, they’re welcome,’’ said Fenk.

“If it came down to that, we would definitely consider letting them come.’’

The cold-blooded truth is that Robinson’s team is 1-0 in games with Oregon this season when the UO cheer/dance team is present and the OSU cheer/dance team is MIA and the band is gone, too. … if Robinson is superstitious. … nah, that would be crazy, barring the OSU cheerleaders and the band from their own building.

Williford also explained how Portland State was able to squeeze its cheerleaders into Matt Court during a non-conference game in December.

“Communication was forwarded in advance to Oregon State that there would not be room to bring its cheerleaders for Sunday’s game,’’ said Williford in an email.

“I don’t know when that was relayed but I was aware of the situation on the previous Tuesday (Jan. 24) because it was disclosed at a weekly operations meeting that the Oregon State cheerleaders would not be in attendance.

“In regards to the Portland State game – Oregon had only 10 of its 24 cheerleaders in attendance for that game since Dec. 12 was the beginning of the Christmas break. We normally fit 10 of our cheerleaders on one end of the floor and 14 dancers on the other end.

“Since we only utilized one end of the floor, it allowed room for Portland State to utilize the other end. I’m told that Portland State placed some of its cheerleaders in the stands during the game but that they were notified in advance that all of their cheerleaders would not be able to be on the floor at one time.

Now we know, but it says here the bad karma Oregon unleashed by refusing to let Oregon State's cheerleaders on the floor came back to bite Dana Altman's team.